Writer wants readers of article to keep an open mind and read between the lines

By

Published
7:00 pm CDT, Tuesday, April 22, 2014

To the editor:

Your timing of the sensationalist report about physician earnings on Easter morning is only matched by the lack of comprehensive reporting.

There is significantly more data that could help the taxpayers understand.

Start with the fact that the numbers represent gross payment, not “take home” pay.

Even the most efficient office has a 50-60% overhead expense. Most of that expense is for employee salaries and benefits.

If you take into account all the money the Laredo Doctors are re-investing in our community in staff salaries, the public would understand better.

Some of us have invested in technologies that assist our patients and save them and their pay or source (Medicare, etc.) a significant amount of money.

Another issue not discussed is the fact that we are in a healthcare shortage area.

This skews the numbers because of the many patients we see, not to make more money but to care for a population with complex problems.

Not taken into account is the amount of training we have gone through, the mountains of paperwork we do and the time we sacrifice from our families to be with our patients, including holidays and weekends.

Your front page target was Dr. Ricardo Cigarroa, a well respected hard working physician who chose to return to his hometown and invest a large amount of money in a state of the art medical facility that cares for his cardiology patients.

In my 10 employee office, I spent over $350,000 on salaries and benefits.

He has employees with certain expertise.

That does not include the overhead for his office, the equipment, insurance and all the other expenses every businessman has to pay.

He is at the hospital frequently (I sometimes make rounds in the morning and see him there; I sometimes make rounds in the evening and see him there).

Also he responds to my calls when I have an emergency and promptly sees my patient (as do almost all physicians). One can appreciate the amount of time he devotes to his patients.

Another mention was of Dr. Benson Huang, also a hard working, well respected physician, who works tirelessly with critical patients and at times not even appreciated by the health care institution he does it for.

Dr. Eduardo Miranda, previously maligned by your newspaper, provides oncology services and has large overhead to provide appropriate medications for his patients.

He has never refused to see my patients regardless of ability to pay.

And when he used a very useful medication and by simple human error ordered it from the wrong place, a location within the U.S., he is placed under scrutiny and made to look like a criminal.

I ask anyone who read this article to keep an open mind, read between the lines and look for “the rest of the story.”